The Tower: Part 6: Ostara
Post #58: In which feathers fly ...
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CHAPTER 20
“Once upon a time, before the moons and sea found one another and the silver tide ebbed and flowed with their passion, there lived an old woman with a bitter tongue. She liked nothing better than gossip. She was especially fond of secrets, the more shameful and guilty, the better. She’d lived a long time, this old woman, and it was difficult to hide anything from her. Her beady little eyes noted every change of expression, quick glance and furtive movement in the community. Once she unearthed a secret, she hoarded it, chortling over it with glee, turning it in her hands and tasting its texture and flavor before finally releasing it from her tongue with a wink, a sly dig in the ribs, a sarcastic comment, a rumor or even a pointed story, naming no names, of course.
When people complained, the old woman was hurt. She was old and lonely, she said, and liked a bit of liveliness and humor. It wasn’t her fault if others took her seriously or misinterpreted her words. It was unjust to blame her because others were too sensitive or liked to pass on gossip. She was blameless.
This old woman destroyed reputations and relationships, sowed distrust and suspicion and ruined lives with her malice, and eventually the townspeople approached their leader and asked her to do something before the whole community unraveled.
The leader thought and thought. She could publicly chastise the old woman for her behavior, but she knew any apology would be empty and nothing would change. How could she make the old woman understand the destructive consequences of her words?
At last she thought of an idea.
On the next market day, the leader instructed the old woman to bring a feather pillow to the marketplace.
The old woman thought the leader quite mad, but agreed and appeared at noon with the pillow, a fine plump one, stuffed with the best down.
The leader stepped forward with a knife in her hand as the villagers watched and cut open the pillow. “Each of these feathers is one of your words,” she said, as a cloud of down feathers filled the air. ‘Your unkind words travel from ear to ear and place to place, spreading out in wider and wider circles.’ The leader flapped and beat the pillow until it hung, an empty pocket of linen. Feathers flew through the marketplace, clinging to animals, eyelashes and straw. Puffs of air blew feathers far and wide, up into the trees and beyond.
‘We’ve prepared a hut in the woods for you,’ said the leader. ‘There you must live, alone, until you collect every feather that was in this pillow and return them to me. Until then, no one will talk to you or visit you. When the pillow is re-stuffed and mended, you may come back to live among us, and welcome.’
Ash imagined the feathers, floating here and there on the whim of every breeze, and felt a moment’s pity for the old woman. It was an impossible task and a hard lesson, though a just one.
“What a wonderful story!” said Maria. “I’ll remember that one.”
“Maybe we can re-create that story,” Heks suggested.
“But we can’t send Seren into exile,” said Clarissa.
“No, but maybe a period of enforced quiet would give him a chance to consider his words and stories more carefully, like the old woman.”
“How do we enforce quiet?” asked Maria.
“Some kind of magic?” Clarissa asked doubtfully.
“Kitchen magic,” said Heks briefly. “I can manage it. Baba Yaga has taught me a thing or two.”
“What can I do?” Clarissa asked.
“You understand this is serious? You consent to binding his tongue, not as revenge for what he did to you, but to protect everyone from his lies and prevent further disconnection and damage to the Yrtym for the sake of all life?
“I understand,” said Clarissa. “I want to help.”
“I’ll need a feather pillow and a beef tongue.”
“I think we recently slaughtered a cow,” said Maria. “I’ll check.”
“Where did you and Seren lie together?” Heks asked Clarissa. “If there was a stain, we could use it. Blood and semen are powerful.”
Clarissa looked away. “We lay on the rag rug in front of the fireplace,” she said. “The rug was stained, and I rolled it up and hid it in the woods.”
“Good girl,” said Heks. “Find it and take it to Maria.
Rose Red, by far the quietest of the group, said, “It’s late. Shouldn’t we get some rest and continue this in the morning?”
Ash realized it was late, and he was hungry. He detached himself from Heks and flew up into the cool, dark air. The community hall was closed and silent. No light showed in the windows. Evidently the performance had ended and everyone had gone home. Rowan Tree lay sleeping under a starry sky. He swooped down again over the circle of women around the fire. They were rising stiffly, stretching and yawning. Eurydice, Rose Red and Persephone headed up the hill together. Maria and Ginger took the path to their house. Ash flitted above Heks and Clarissa as they walked the short distance to Heks’s little cave-like dwelling. Heks shut the door firmly but Ash knew a window was ajar for him. Once the women were inside, he and Beatrice spiraled above Rowan Tree, watching Persephone leave Rose Red and Eurydice for the hay shed where she slept. Maria and Ginger had already disappeared into their house. Ash waited until Eurydice and Rose Red, who lived the farthest away, disappeared under the forest’s eaves before once again turning his attention to hunting.
CLARISSA
Clarissa put out her hand and touched the friendly earthen wall, slightly curved, beside her. Heks’s little house, nestled in the earth, felt sheltered and safe, as comforting in its way as the sea.
She was glad to be alone. She’d thought she would cry, relieving her chaotic shock, pain and anger, but tears didn’t come. Instead she lay, curled on her side, her back against the wall, and felt the night air touch her face as it ruffled in the window, left ajar for Ash and Beatrice.
She was no longer a young girl. Her experience with Seren, as disappointing as it had been, nonetheless moved her fully into the circle of womanhood. The threshold seemed much less important from this side than from the other. She hoped, next time, physical union would be more enjoyable.
But she would not lie with Seren again.
Had he ever truly been attracted to her, or only loved her worship of him? How could he have kissed her the way he did on the cliffs and then rejected her so cruelly, privately and publicly?
Was she doing the right thing in agreeing to temporarily silence Seren? Was it just? Was it necessary? Was she motivated by anger and revenge?
She felt angry, but she felt weary, too. She had no taste for games and manipulation. She had loved and desired and made her love and desire plain. Seren took her desire and twisted it into something shameful and distorted. It occurred to her Seren was like her mother, distrustful of the body’s honest expressions.
As for revenge, she wanted none of it. It would make her feel worse rather than better. Hurting Seren added to her own hurt, rather than healing.
Seren’s behavior affected others besides her. Irvin, she knew, if he were alive, would counsel her to ignore the slight to himself. What did it matter what others said about him or thought of him, he would say, brushing it away with a gesture of his hand. For a moment she saw him clearly in memory, smiling into her eyes, his gentle face alight with wry amusement.
But it was not right to lie about Orpheus. There could be no point to such a lie, except to appear greater and more important than he was. Seren was famous and applauded everywhere he appeared. Why compete so fiercely with a dead man? Why not build his own legend? Clarissa thought of the stories and songs she had gathered from him. How much of it was lies, or stolen from others? She would never be able to listen to him again without suspicion.
The hip she lay on ached, in spite of the generous pad of blankets and sheepskin beneath her. She turned over.
Above any personal considerations was the harm to the Yrtym. She had not known before how much damage one person could do to connection. For the most part, her people lived peacefully together in mutual respect and kindness. She’d seen that kind of cooperation at the lighthouse as well – until Seren came, she realized. He had caused tension with his demands for attention and control. In the birch wood there had been some friction and Baba Yaga was frankly horrifying, but even so, she remembered the feeling of a complicated system striving to understand what was not working, and why, and how to heal it together. Nobody deliberately sabotaged connection. The same had been true in Sedna’s place, where each creature in the picture shared and pooled information, stories, music and tradition to help everyone.
What had really happened at Yggdrasil? Seren had never even named the participants. She hadn’t known Heks was there, for example.
She rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling.
Heks was right. They were, after all, not hurting Seren, merely imposing a temporary silence. Maybe he needed some help understanding how damaging his words were, like the old woman in the story. Maybe she could explain to him about the Yrtym. If he fully understood the importance of healing and repairing connection, he would surely change his ways. Maybe, one day, he would understand how careless and hurtful he’d been with her, and they could begin again …
She turned onto her side again, just as a shadow floated in the window.
“Ash?” she whispered. “Is that you?”
The shadow flitted to her and Ash landed on the blanket over her, flat and awkward in the manner of bats who are not hanging, and peered into her face.
“It’s us,” Beatrice shrilled in her thin voice, and she crawled out and perched on one of the fragile bones over which Ash’s thin suede wing stretched.
“Have you been hunting?”
“Yes. Dawn is coming, though.”
“Haven’t you slept, my dear?” inquired Beatrice.
“No. I wanted to think. Were you at Yggdrasil when Heks was there and they mended the portal?”
“We were there,” said Ash.
“Tell me about it.”
Clarissa had never heard Ash tell a story before. He put his whole heart into it, twisting his small wrinkled face into startlingly good imitations of the characters he spoke of. Nothing escaped his notice and he described the scene in such sensory detail she felt as though she hung in the tree with them and watched it unfold. He stalked back and forth on Clarissa’s blanket imitating Odin blowing his horn, cheeks puffing like a bellows, and imitated Nephthys’s slow sensual dance around the bones, swaying and turning. He imitated the heavily pregnant Seed-Bearer’s waddling walk.
Clarissa became so engrossed and delighted she didn’t notice the sky paling into dawn. It wasn’t until Ash finished and yawned hugely, showing a row of fragile pointed teeth, that she realized it was morning and Ash and Beatrice wanted their beds.
“I’ve kept you up,” she said, contrite. “Thank you. That was wonderful. You made me forget everything else.”
Ash bowed elaborately. “My pleasure.” He launched himself into the air and melted into the shadows in the dim corner where he roosted during the day.
Clarissa turned onto her side, a smile lingering on her face. It had felt good to laugh. Her heart felt less sore. She closed her eyes and slept.
***
“We need an excuse to get everyone together,” said Heks, rinsing the beef tongue thoroughly.
“I’ve already thought about that,” said Maria. “Will this work?” She showed Heks a square of thick, rough paper. “Beth makes it from plants. This batch is from burdock.”
“Perfect,” said Heks.
Maria nodded, satisfied, and set the paper aside. “We’ll celebrate Ostara,” she said. “We’ve done that every year, so it’s not out of the ordinary. We’ve recently slaughtered a cow.” She nodded at the tongue in Heks’s hands. “We’ll cook gallons of beef stew and build a bonfire. It will be our first outdoor meal of the season.”
“The tongue can go right into the stew,” said Heks. “No one will even know it’s there.”
“It wouldn’t matter in any case,” said Maria. “We’ll use organ meat as well. By the time it’s cooked all day with onions and garlic and we add vegetables and mushrooms, it will be a normal beef stew, the kind we always make.”
“As soon as we’re finished with the tongue,” said Ginger, “Maria and I will go to the kitchen and get started.”
“What shall I do?” Clarissa asked.
“Did you find the rug?”
“We brought it down with us,” said Eurydice.
Heks had woken Clarissa after a brief two hours of sleep with a cup of strong tea and a hearty breakfast. The short sleep and food heartened Clarissa, and she and Heks walked to Maria’s house, where they found preparations underway for silencing Seren. Heks sent Clarissa to summon Eurydice and Kunik, Maria to procure paper and Ginger to the slaughtering shed to track down the beef tongue. On her way to Eurydice’s house near Rowan Gate, Clarissa found the hazel clump under which she’d concealed the rag rug from the community hall floor. Heks had praised her foresight in saving it, as it would add power to the binding spell, though Clarissa was guiltily aware she’d acted only out of shame and a desire to hide the evidence of her humiliation, even from herself.
She’d found Kunik and Eurydice eating breakfast and accepted another cup of tea while they finished, and then they’d reported to Heks.
“Cut up that rug,” said Heks to Clarissa. “Cut out the stain and keep it safe. We’ll use that right at the end. Cut the rest into pieces for the bonfire.” She turned to Kunik. “Will you build the fire, and make sure to pile the wood over the rug so it burns thoroughly and nobody sees it? I don’t want anyone recognizing it and asking questions.”
“Of course,” said Kunik. “Count on me.”
Clarissa sat in the morning sun and tackled the carpet with a pair of heavy shears. She put the stained fabric in her pocket and took the neatly stacked scraps back inside to Kunik.
“I’m off,” he said, tucking the fabric under his arm. “I’ll go find Chattan and start collecting wood.”
The tongue, rinsed and looking rather pathetic, Clarissa thought, lay curled on Maria’s table. Ginger carefully cut the paper into tiny strips and passed them to Maria, who had a feather quill and ink made from black walnut ready.
Heks, using a sharp knife, cut several slits in the tongue. “Maria, write ‘Seren’ on each piece of paper,” she instructed. “Then, we’ll each write our own names over his name. Clarissa, you write your dad’s name over Seren’s on one of them, too. Eurydice, write the name of everyone who was at Yggdrasil with us over Seren’s. Then we’ll insert a piece of paper into each slit.
As the ink dried, each woman wrote her name over Seren’s. Heks waved the paper strips impatiently to dry the ink and carefully angled them into the slits.
When every woman present had written her name, and Clarissa had written Irvin’s, Maria passed the quill and ink to Eurydice, and she and Heks between them recited the names of those who had been present at Yggdrasil.
“There,” said Heks with satisfaction. “That takes care of us, as well as others we know Seren has lied about.”
“Should I make one for Orpheus?” Eurydice asked.
“You should,” said Heks. “I forgot about Orpheus. Do one for his mother, too, and the other muse, what’s-‘er-name.”
“Euterpe,” said Eurydice.
“Right. Do one for her.”
When every slit held a piece of paper, Heks rubbed the tongue with vinegar and a garlic clove, saying:
“We silence this harmful tongue.
We cleanse it in the wordless heat of our bellies.
We banish its voice.”
She passed the tongue to Maria, who repeated both actions and words, speaking clearly and forcefully. Now they grouped around the table, concentrating, working together, their actions deliberate.
Eurydice splashed vinegar onto the tongue and rubbed it in thoroughly, turning the thick, ugly curl of raw meat carefully. She peeled a new garlic clove with her fingernail, split it and rubbed that in too, repeating Heks’s words.
Clarissa received the tongue after Ginger. Somehow as each woman anointed it with vinegar and seasoned it, the tongue became more recognizable, more supple. She almost expected it to squirm in her hands. It felt unpleasantly warm. Once again, she marveled at the power of women joining together with a single purpose and mind. It was the same kind of power raised during dance.
The smell of vinegar stung her nostrils as she dipped her fingers into it and rubbed them over the tongue. She thought of her father, the width and depth of his tolerance and kindness, and her anger rose against Seren and his portrayal of him. It was right Seren be made speechless for a time. It was just. She was glad to do it. The garlic clove felt firm and slippery between her fingers, slowly diminishing as she rubbed and rubbed at the tongue.
“We silence this harmful tongue.
We cleanse it in the wordless heat of our bellies.
We banish its voice.”
When each of them had added her own layer of vinegar, garlic and incantation, Maria and Ginger threw a linen towel over the tongue and left for the community kitchen. “Leave the paper in the slits,” Heks admonished after them. “It will dissolve in the cooking and we’ll eat them, too.”
“Leave it to us,” said Maria, smiling over her shoulder.